


Grunt Work

by jellyfishfics



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Humor, Keitor Exchange 2018, Lotor and his terrible crush, Lotor sees Keith in nothing but rose-tinted lenses laugh at him with me, M/M, Oblivious but cute Keith, Pining, Pining Lotor, i guess?, supportive paladins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 13:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14672466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishfics/pseuds/jellyfishfics
Summary: Lotor gets roped into doing some grunt work for the Voltron Coalition, and awkwardly develops a crush on Keith in the process





	Grunt Work

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MizuLeKitten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizuLeKitten/gifts).



> Hey MizuLeKitten! I hope you like this! Between getting sick for three weeks, a trip to the hospital, and scrambling to catch up at work, I didn't have a lot of time to work on this, so if you don't like it, please message me and I'll do a request fic for you to make up for it!
> 
> But I hope you do enjoy awkward pining Lotor and casual D*sney prince (ok only for like one scene but still) Keith! Let me know what you think please!
> 
> If responses to this fic are good, I'll try to write more keitor, because I know the fandom needs it.

Lotor grits his teeth as he drops himself into the desk in the corner of the meeting room. He sets up the holo-screen and holo-keyboard, as well as a notebook and pen, in case his holo-materials glitch out. He wouldn’t put it past the (younger) paladins to sabotage his first day at a Voltron Coalition meeting.

Though Lotor didn’t quite envision himself where he is now; the new emperor of the Galra, forced to sit in the corner of the room, away from the grand table like a chastised school boy. Angrily, he punches the date and time onto his screen as the Coalition members file in.

The Coalition delegates nervously glance his way as they scurry to their seats, and Lotor stares at them as he lists their names for meeting notes. He recognizes most of them. Leaders of planets both he and his late father ruled, who relished their freedom with Voltorn, but now squirm that the new Galra emperor is in their midst. Lotor smiles at them politely though, because these people are his allies now. Some of them nervously return his smile, while others seem to jump out of their skin at the sight.

Finally, the Voltron paladins arrive, headed by Princess Allura and flanked by two Blade of Marmora members. Lance looks Lotor’s way, smirking next to Allura, and Lotor resists the urge to sneer. It was his fault Lotor was stuck in this position. Lance had started whining that since Lotor was the newest member of the coalition, he should do the grunt work and take minutes for the meeting. He somehow roped the younger members of Voltron into it (i.e., Pidge, who usually took the minutes at a breakneck pace, with Hunk just going along with it apprehensively), and convinced Allura and Shiro that Lotor had wanted to take the minutes as a show of his loyalty to the cause. How ridiculous.

Lotor doesn’t really care too much though. He knows if he was to attend as a guest, he would have been beside Allura instead, and Lotor doesn’t care for Lance’s petty jealousy.

Lotor takes another look at the Blade of Marmora members, and notices that one is significantly smaller than the other. Lotor assumes the larger one is the leader of the blades, while the small one is the fabled “Keith,” former red and black paladin of Voltron. Lotor has heard of him whispered in the halls of the casteship, knows he’s the former leader who destroyed his teleduv, and he’s also aware that he had inadvertently “saved” Keith during the battle of Naxela. 

They had met in person when Keith returned the favor, saving Lotor from the bombs before his coronation as emperor, but Lotor has never actually seen Keith’s face, as he was never allowed to watch previous transmissions with the Blade of Marmora, and there hadn’t been another one since his formal induction into the Coalition.

Allura calls the meeting to attention, and all the delegates rise, along with the blades, who pull their hoods back, letting their masks melt away. And for the first time in his life, Lotor feels the ground below him drop out at the sight of Keith’s face, and his piercing, purple eyes.

***

“Lotor?” Allura calls, as the doors slide open and Lotor steps into the castleship’s breakroom. “Could I have a word? It’s about yesterday’s meeting minutes.”

“Is there a problem?” Lotor asks, seeing that not only Allura, but all the paladins and Coran are hunched around a holo-screen, assumedly squinting at his minutes. “I’m sure you’ll find them to be concise, yet eloquent and detailed.”

“Eloquent and detailed, sure,” Pidge starts, eyes still scanning the notes. “But nothing about this is _concise!_ This is fifteen pages describing _Keith!”_

“I didn’t even know his eyelashes were so long,” Hunk wonders aloud.

“Or that his hair is wavy,” Lance adds. “I always thought it was just greasy.”

“You go on about his nose for six paragraphs,” Coran points out.

“Guys, come on,” Shiro sighs. “The delegates from yesterday are still here, which includes Keith. Act a little mature, ok? At least in the name of Voltron.”

“You’re not a little interested Shiro?” Pidge asks. “You’re the only one of us who hasn’t read the minutes.”

Shiro sighs again. “I already know all those things about Keith, so it doesn’t matter whether I read them or not.”

Lotor narrows his eyes at Shiro, trying to decipher the meaning of that statement. Just as he thinks to ask about Shiro’s relationship with Keith, the doors behind them slide open, and someone walks in.

That someone—or rather, _something,_ skitters up to Lotor’s foot, and once Lotor looks down at it, he jumps back in shock.

“AAH! WHAT IS THAT!?” Lotor yells as a mouse twitches its nose at him.

“Sorry,” says a voice so husky and angelic that Lotor’s heart stops in his chest. “I went to check out my old room and found these three snooping around.”

Lotor turns around to find ~~his angel~~ Keith standing a few feet away, with one mouse comfortably held in his hand, and the other, fatter mouse riding his shoulder and rubbing its face into his cheek.

Keith laughs a little under his breath, eyes crinkling. “Stop that. It tickles.”

Lotor could die a happy man on the spot.

The mouse that had come up to Lotor runs back to Keith, climbing up until it perches itself on his other shoulder.

“Aw,” Allura coos. “They missed you.”

“Well they’re cute I guess,” Keith says, but the smile on his face gives him away.

_You are far cuter,_ Lotor thinks, watching Keith pet the mice with a gentle finger and tender expression.

Suddenly those soft purple eyes look straight into Lotor’s, and distantly Lotor can feel the attention of everyone else in the room on him as well.

“Did you just call me cute?” Keith asks, a confused tilt to his head that screams adorable. “You just did it again: you muttered ‘adorable.’”

Lotor’s heart kick starts in equal parts panic and embarrassment, and the heat rising inside him makes his mouth feel dry.

“I-I, well,” he stutters, before pausing to collect himself. Lotor has never been a man to back down. “Yes, I did. I must go.”

Robotically, Lotor makes his way around Keith and then all but dashes out of the room. Marching his way down to his room, Lotor still can’t shake the mesmerizing pairing of Keith’s round eyes and parted lips

***

A week later, Shiro approaches Lotor during a Voltron visit to the Galra empire. The throne room is long and tall, making Shiro feel small despite his stature, and lined with sentries and guards alike.

“You requested an audience with me?” Lotor asks from his seat on the throne. Shiro is only about 20 feet away, but the distance feels much, much larger.

Shiro scratches his cheek, trying to decide the best way to go about this. “Actually, I just wanted to talk and bring up a proposition of sorts?”

Lotor raises a brow in interest, getting up from his throne and descending the stairs to stand before Shiro. “What is it?”

“The Blade of Marmora need help with some minor repairs and upkeep on their base. They’ve asked me if I can go, since I’ve been there before, but I thought it might be a show of good faith and solidarity if the emperor showed up instead,” Shiro explains.

“So you want me to do physical labor for the blades to prove myself to them? You’re demoting me to grunt work in the Coalition like Lance?”

Shiro rubs his neck. “We already apologized for Lance.” Lotor’s face is still impassive, so swiftly, Shiro tacks on, “Plus Keith will be there.”

At that, both of Lotor’s eyebrows raise. “…I’ve wanted to ask before, but what is your relationship to Keith?”

Shiro smiles sadly. “He’s my best friend. I’ve been a bit hard on him lately, asking him to take over for me, and I feel it’s partly my fault that he pushed us away to join the blades, but I support him no matter what. And I don’t really know your intentions with him, but you seem to like him, so I’m hoping you treat him well. He deserves it.”

***

_“He likes flying, piloting especially. He likes sparring, either with swords or hand-to-hand combat. He collects knives,”_ Shiro had said, when Lotor had asked if he had any advice.

“Flying, sparring, knives,” Lotor chants as he welds a panel shut. “Flying, sparring, knives, fly—”

“That’s a weird mantra you’ve got going on,” Keith says, and Lotor swerves around one-eighty to see Keith holding a handful of wires and some pliers

Lotor, caught off guard, blurts out the first thing in his head, thinking of Keith’s profound eyes, “I like purple!” 

Keith blinks at him. “That’s good, seeing as it’s your skin tone.” With that said, Keith walks away.

Lotor turns back around and thunks his head onto the half welded panel.

***

When they take a break from repairs for lunch, Lotor finds himself alone, with most of the other blade members eyeing him suspiciously from other tables, most of them with their hoods still up. Lotor expected this; he is the new emperor of the Galra, plus all the blades have been considered criminals until he joined the Coalition.

Soon, however, someone seats themselves across from him. Lotor glances up to find Keith biting into a cylinder shaped fruit. Lotor didn’t think that after his blunder a varga ago, Keith wanted anything to do with him.

Munching on the fruit, Keith picks up another space fruit Lotor has never seen, and sets it on Lotor’s tray. “Here. I got it for you since it’s purple.”

Lotor can’t help himself, he laughs, picking up the diamond shaped fruit and taking a bite. It’s terribly bitter, but he forces it down.

“Thanks,” Lotor tells Keith. “I like it.” _And I like you, very much,_ Lotor thinks seeing the earnest way Keith smiles at that, and Lotor hopes he hasn’t said his thoughts out loud this time.

“I’m sorry everyone’s pretty wary of you right now,” Keith says. “But I know what it’s like to be new here, so don’t worry.”

Lotor smiles at Keith’s kindness, heart fluttering in his ribcage. Yes, Keith has all the qualities necessary to rule by Lotor’s side. He imagines their wedding will be grand.

“Lotor? Are you listening?” Keith asks.

Lotor snaps out of his haze. “I’m sorry, just lost in thought about the future for the empire. You were saying?”

“I asked how long you were staying. Repairs should be done today or tomorrow.”

“I’ll stay a few extra days then,” Lotor decides.

“Why?” Keith asks, tossing the core of his fruit aside.

“Uh, erm, to see how the Blade of Marmora operate, of course!” Lotor says instead of his obvious intention of _to get closer to you of course._ “The Blade of Marmora have been operating covertly under the empire’s nose for generations, their knowledge and stealth will be invaluable now that we’re allies.”

Keith frowns. “I don’t think Kolivan will be telling you anything anytime soon.”

Lotor curses himself for coming up with such a half-baked excuse to stay. “Then why don’t you show me around a bit? I’ve gotten to know all the paladins but you, and I’ve known the other delegates from…past experiences. We can cruise a while in my ship—”

“That you made from the comet you stole from us,” Keith says with a weak glare.

Lotor starts to sweat and clears his throat. “W-We can spar. I’m curious about the blades’ fighting style, and I can show you the empire’s fighting style as well.”

Keith’s eyes relax and he perks up, and Lotor tries to ride success out.

“If you would like, you can come back with me to my fleet ship, where I have a room filled with over four-hundred ceremonial Galra knives,” Lotor adds.

Keith’s eyes light up in what Lotor can only describe as _sparkles._ “F-Four-hundred!?”

“Over four-hundred,” Lotor corrects smugly.

Keith’s eyes shine like purple stars in his excitement. Lotor wants Keith to look this excited for the rest of his life. Feeling victory setting in, he decides to put out the clincher.

“You know; my ship is meant to be _co-piloted.”_

Keith all but gasps, jumping up from his seat and glancing toward the exit and towards the hangar. “Can we go now? I want to familiarize myself with the controls.”

Lotor stands with a smile and an obvious blush on his face. He sweeps a hand to the door and says, “Lead the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Again, I hope you guys liked this fic! I'm a sucker for goofy pining Lotor, and of course, Keith is beautiful, so hopefully that came across.
> 
> Comments and kudos are highly appreciated, but if you need to message me with a swift response, reach me at  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/jellyfishquips)  
> [tumblr](http://jellyfishfics.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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